Inspecting The New ADC Meta

At the start of the preseason, all of the talk revolving marksmen was whether Press the Attack or Lethal Tempo was considered better. Fleet Footwork was considered inferior to the other two. At the start of the preseason, marksmen took Doran's Blade if they were an aggressive ADC or Doran’s Shield if they were a defensive ADC. Triumph and Legend: Alacrity were both considered mandatory. Now, just a few weeks later, most of this has changed completely. Marksmen have adapted to the aggressive poke meta and we now see a much more defensive start from the Bottom Lane position. I’ll talk about why the meta in the Bottom Lane has changed so drastically, what it has evolved into, and what these changes in themselves have done to the meta!

What has Changed?

The first thing that needs to be discussed is what actually changed. One of the biggest changes was the Relic Shield start by Marksmen. Relic Shield is a supportive item, usually taken by Tank Supports such as Alistar or Braum. Relic Shield grants the user 75 bonus HP and also grants +2 gold generation per second. It also has 3 passive abilities attached to it. One of the passive is Bandit, which grants the user a small amount of gold everytime they basic attack an enemy champion. Another passive is called Spoils of War, which heals you and the closest ally, while also granting the ally kill gold. The final passive is the Quest passive, which means once this item has earned you 750 gold and you upgrade to Targon’s Embrace, you’ll get a permanent shield based on your level.

Relic Shield sounds like an extremely advanced item, but it’s quite simple in practice. Now that we know what Relic Shield does, we can analyze why it’s so good for Marksman, and why it’s being started now.

First, the Spoils of War passive grants healing every time you kill a minion with the passive up while also giving kill gold to your support. This not only grants your support an advantage by giving them gold but also heals you to protect you from strong laners.

Second, the Bandit passive is also useful as it grants gold everytime you auto-attack an enemy Champion, which means Relic Shield can also be very effective on aggressive Marksman.

Third, once the Quest is completed, the Shield Battery you receive is extremely strong and gives you a cheap, defensive item relatively early in the game. This allows you to survive mid game team fights much easier, and to play more aggressive than normally possible. Fourth, the amount of gold this item grants through all of its passives and gold generation makes it a very cost-effective buy in general and can get you to your items faster than the opposing Marksman. And finally, the ability to buy 3 pots instead of 1 with the regular Doran’s starts allows you to sustain much more effectively in the early game and stay in lane longer than normally possible.

But Relic Shield isn’t the only thing that has changed in the Bottom Lane! The other massive change in the Bottom Lane that deviates from the norm is what Runes Marksmen are currently using. I’ll show the Primary Tree Marksmen are taking, and I’ll also show two different Secondary Trees that have been run successfully.

The Precision Tree

 

Keystone - Fleet Footwork: Fleet Footwork allows you to heal and grants 30% movement speed on an Energized auto attack. Attacking and moving builds energy stacks to make you Energized. Similar to Warlord’s Bloodlust of the past, Fleet Footwork grants additional lane sustain on top of Relic Shield. This allows the user of Fleet Footwork to have a safer laning phase. Additionally, the current Marksman build for a lot of Champions involves building both Statikk Shiv and Rapid Firecannon, which both also utilize the Energize passive effect. With the addition of Fleet Footwork, it makes your empowered auto attack that much better.

Overheal: Excess healing instead becomes a shield, for up to 10% of your total health. This synergizes very well with the rest of the build because you get healed by both Fleet Footwork, Legend: Bloodline, and Relic Shield. Additionally, having a lifesteal item in the late game means this rune ends up generating so much defensive value, that it actually ends up being better than what had become the norm: Triumph.

Legend: Bloodline: This Tier 3 Rune grants lifesteal for every champion takedown, large monster kill, and minion kill. Again, this synergizes excellently with the rest of the build, especially because of the Rune Overheal. This Rune allows Marksman to not have to build a lifesteal item to gain the full benefit of Overheal, and is, in my opinion, the more favorable choice.

Legend: Alacrity: However, some people do prefer the standard Legend Alacrity, which instead of granting lifesteal, grants attack speed. This means that Overheal will not get as much value, but the Marksman who takes Alacrity will be able to hit the attack speed cap of 2.50 faster than the Marksman who takes Bloodline. This Rune choice ends up being mostly personal preference.

Coup de Grace: This Rune causes you to deal more damage to Champions at low HP. Not much to say about this Rune, this has become the standard Rune in the Tier 4 position if you run Precision, due to its overall strength, especially over the other two options.

Secondary Option 1: Domination

 

Taste of Blood: This Rune heals you when you damage an enemy on a 20 second CD. Taste of Blood is very effective with the rest of this healing build and allows for even more lane sustain.

Zombie Ward: When your Ward dies, or after you kill a Ward, a friendly Zombie Ward takes its place, which grants vision for 3 minutes and is visible. Although not a core component of the build, Zombie Ward ends up being the best option out of the last six options because of the large amount of vision and control it grants to your team.

Secondary Option 2: Resolve

Iron Skin: Automatically gain 5 armor and heals and shields increases your armor by 5% for 3 seconds. This offers a lot of protection in the Bottom Lane, as most Marksmen do primary Physical Damage. Additionally, the increase in armor will occur quite frequently, due to the amount of heals and shields you have access to with the rest of the build.

Revitalize: Heals and shields you cast and receive are 5% stronger, and increase by an additional 10% on targets below 40% HP. This Rune also synergizes very well with the rest of the build, because your healing is essentially increased by 5%. This can also be very effective with an enchanter support such as Janna or Soraka.

How Did This Occur?

Essentially, this was caused by a massive influx of poke Champions, especially in the Bottom Lane. Champions that abused Arcane Comet such as Miss Fortune and Jhin made their poke damage unbearable and even made things such as Xerath Support viable due to the amount of damage they were able to output. Because of the low sustain that Marksman had, even those who chose to start Doran’s Shield, Poke Champions became dominant in the lane. To counteract this, Relic Shield and Fleet Footwork began to be taken, and people found out that you can actually survive strong poke lanes now and effectively neutralize the amount of damage they are able to do. This leads to how this is shaping the meta.

Results of the Meta Change

Currently, late game Champions such as Vayne and Tristana dominate the lane because they are able to farm effectively and get to the mid and late game without falling too far behind. Additionally, the amount of gold Relic Shield offers means that these carries are able to acquire their items much faster and are much more effective than they were before. It’s also brought back a tank bottom lane meta, because not only are the Marksman not getting poked out of lane, but neither are the tanks. This results in Champions such as Braum, and Alistar to have a much larger effect than before.